College of LAS « Illinois

Anthropology

Record Cache of Axe Heads Unearthed Near Cahokia

Archaeology summer field school may be better than an Indiana Jones adventure.
Last summer, while digging near the ancient mound settlement of Cahokia in southwestern
Illinois, students attending the Department of Anthropology's field camp
hit "a mother lode" that may revolutionize archaeologists' theories
about early Indian settlements.

While searching for the remains of house walls, students unearthed some 70
axe heads. Called celts, these smooth, oblong rocks ranged in size from smaller
than a cell phone to the length of riding boots. The cache may be the largest
collection of celts found at Cahokia and is assuredly the most complete collection
in existence today, according to Tim Pauketat, director of the summer field school
and a professor of archaeology in LAS.

Around 1,000 years ago, Cahokia was the only "city" in North America.
Some 15,000 people lived in huts at the base of large earthen mounds on which
were built religious and administrative temples. Thousands more people lived in
villages within a day's walk of Cahokia. Researchers had believed that these
outlying villages sprang up as the city declined and the demand for food and resources
drove the population outward. Several years ago, Pauketat and LAS archaeologist
Thomas Emerson challenged this theory by proving that Cahokia and the villages
flourished at the same time. Pauketat believes the villages were set up as farming
communities to supply Cahokia with food. The village in which the celts were found,
near present-day O'Fallon, may have had a different role—as that of
an administrative center, says Pauketat.

"The celts were buried in a pit, obviously as part of a ceremony,"
says Pauketat. "When you consider that fact along with the size of the houses
in the village, you are led to believe that this village was founded to oversee
the farming settlements. Though Cahokia was only 15 miles away, that was a day's walk—too far away to administer these settlements
effectively without an outpost."

If Pauketat's theory is correct, it would mean that the political structure
of Cahokia more closely resembled a city-state rather than a big ceremonial village
or trade center.